Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) dodged all the trouble during a chaotic finish to the fifth stage of the Tour of California, then held off hard-charging Caleb Ewan and world champion Peter Sagan at the finish line Thursday to pick up his second victory of this year’s race.
Ewan earned his second podium and Sagan wound up third, while American rider Tejay van Garderen finished safely in the field to maintain his overall leaded heading into Friday’s decisive summit stage.
”I didn’t see (the chaos) because I went to the right. The crash was on the left side. I only listened into my radio,” Gaviria said. ”The other guys from the team, they did a really good job, and we are happy because it was a really nice victory today.”
Earlier in the day, American rider Kendall Ryan won the bunch sprint in Elk Grove to take the first of the three stages of the women’s race. Emma White was second and Annette Edmondson was third.
Tour of California 2018 – stage 5 results (Stockton – Elk Grove):
| 1 | Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) | 4:04:34 |
| 2 | Caleb Ewan (Mitchelton-Scott) | ,, |
| 3 | Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) | ,, |
| 4 | Rick Zabel (Katusha-Alpecin) | ,, |
| 5 | John Murphy (Holowesko-Citadel) | ,, |
| 6 | Sean Bennett (Hagens Berman Axeon) | ,, |
| 7 | Lucas Sebastian Haedo (UnitedHealthcare) | ,, |
| 8 | Ivo Oliveira (Hagens Berman Axeon) | ,, |
| 9 | Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) | ,, |
| 10 | Travis McCabe (UnitedHealthcare) | ,, |
General classification after stage 5:
| 1 | Tejay van Garderen (BMC) | 16:55:29 |
| 2 | Egan Bernal (Team Sky) | +23” |
| 3 | Daniel Martinez (EF Education First-Drapac) | +37” |
| 4 | Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) | +01’07” |
| 5 | Tao Geoghegan Hart (Team Sky) | +01’15” |
| 6 | Rafal Majka (Bora-hansgrohe) | +01’29” |
| 7 | Brandon McNulty (Rally Cycling) | +02’08” |
| 8 | Laurens De Plus (Quick-Step Floors) | +02’13” |
| 9 | Kristijan Durasek (UAE Team Emirates) | +02’15” |
| 10 | Brent Bookwalter (BMC) | +02’34” |
